Evernote is a general note taking application that integrates with your browser. You can use it to save entire articles, bookmark articles, take notes, and more. It comes in both a free version which has limited synchronization capabilities, and also a subscription version, which raises that limit. You can download Evernote for your computer here. It can be used online, and there’s an app for it as well.

Some of the things you can do with Evernote:

Save search-result lists

Save complete articles

Save bookmarks to articles

For the complete list of tips, see PEP-Web Tips on the PEP-Web support page.

Fonagy, P. (1991). Thinking about Thinking: Some Clinical and Theoretical Considerations in the Treatment of a Borderline Patient. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 72:639-656.

Welcome to PEP Web!

Viewing the full text of this document requires a subscription to PEP Web.

If you are coming in from a university from a registered IP address or secure referral page you should not need to log in. Contact your university librarian in the event of problems.

If you have a personal subscription on your own account or through a Society or Institute please put your username and password in the box below. Any difficulties should be reported to your group administrator.

Username:

Password:

Can't remember your username and/or password? If you have forgotten your username and/or password please click here and log in to the PaDS database. Once there you need to fill in your email address (this must be the email address that PEP has on record for you) and click "Send." Your username and password will be sent to this email address within a few minutes. If this does not work for you please contact your group organizer.

Thinking about Thinking: Some Clinical and Theoretical Considerations in the Treatment of a Borderline Patient

Peter Fonagy

INTRODUCTION

The borderline concept

Psychoanalysis and modern psychiatry take opposing approaches to the definition of borderline patients. In the North American clinical literature borderline pathology is seen as a distinct clinical syndrome characterized by impulsivity, pattern of unstable but intense relationships, inappropriate and intense anger, identity disturbance, affective instability, frantic efforts to avoid abandonment, suicidal threats, self-mutilating behaviour and chronic feelings of emptiness and boredom(APA, 1987); (Gunderson, 1984); (Gunderson et al., 1981). Clinicians, working within various psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic frameworks, who are frequently confronted by pathology typical of borderline patients in so-called neurotic individuals are understandably reluctant to draw sharp distinctions on the basis of concepts and categories which are primarily descriptive (Bion, 1957); (Guntrip, 1968); (Klein, 1946); (Knight, 1953)(Rosenfeld, 1978). Kernberg (1967), (1975), (1985)(1988) takes an intermediate position between a purely phenomenological and a classical psychoanalytic position, preferring to conceive of borderline as a level of psychic functioning characterized by non-specific manifestations of ego weakness, shift towards primary-process thinking, identity diffusion and specific defence operations. Within this framework, borderline denotes a particular type of psychic organization which may be found in quite a broad range of personality

[This is a summary or excerpt from the full text of the book or article. The full text of the document is available to subscribers.]